God seems to call us to places we would never have imagined on our own. I am sure I am not the only one who has felt this way. You probably have as well at different points in your life. I can tell you I never expected to become a travel agent and start my own travel agency… and yet here I am.
A travel agent, or travel advisor, is someone knowledgeable about travel, who assists with booking travel, and who is there by your side to answer questions the entire time. For me becoming a travel agent was not first and foremost about a career change. Travel has always been something I enjoyed and so becoming a travel agent has been a step in faith to help others experience the world that God has given us.
When asked why I enjoy travel so much it comes down to the experiences. I find great joy in seeing new places, experiencing new cultures, and just “being” in a way that I am not in my own home. Travel is an experience: it is seeing something from a different perspective, hearing something with a different echo, feeling something that shows the world is truly larger than where we live. While I desire to see the world, travel does not always seem possible for me. I have two distinct challenges when it comes to travel.
The first challenge consists of my physical disabilities. I have health challenges and, quite honestly, many of us do. However, my health concerns are truly physical disabilities. There are limitations on what I can and cannot do. There are things that make travel exhausting and just plain difficult. For example, when visiting any of the Caribbean islands I have to know what to expect. I did not know what to expect going on a recent trip and I discovered after arriving that nothing was really accessible to me using my walker. I could not get to the beach and I could not navigate most of the tourist areas as they were on a sandy beach and not a paved area. I ended up sitting where I could get and crying because I could not even see the ocean… and the ocean and the beach was the whole point of this visit! This particular island claimed it was accessible as it had beach wheelchairs available. However, in beach wheelchair I am unable to self-propel. This meant that I would be unable to go anywhere on my own. I could get a beach wheelchair ride to a chair on the beach where I could see the ocean but then I would be left alone. I would have to try to get someone to help me if I wanted to get off the beach. I was unable to be independent. It was definitely a challenging day. I don’t want others to ever feel the way I did that day. I think everyone should be able to have the same access, or at least comparable access, to see the world that God has created for us to live in.
And my challenges are not just my physical disabilities. I have another main challenge, my second challenge, that often makes travel difficult. I am autistic. I discovered this in adulthood and did not have the support of systems in place from my childhood. I am still learning all the ways that I have developed to cope, or mask to fit in, that I use to function in daily life. And that doesn’t just magically go away when I travel. Rather, I often find myself in sensory overload when among a crowd waiting to board an airplane, when sitting in a theater show on a cruise ship, and even when walking around a new-to-me location. The noises, the colors, the voices, the lights, the people… they all become too much and I find myself having to step out of experiences that I wanted, and still want, to do and to see and to experience. Travel also upends my routines. My simple morning routine of making my own cup of coffee in my own, familiar machine and adding my own, familiar creamer to my own, familiar mug before sitting in my own, familiar chair is impossible when traveling. And that is only one small routine that is upended. The unpredictability of travel means that, often, I spend more time wanting to be in a familiar hotel room than experiencing the place I came to see. It can be so very hard to want to truly experience the world that God has created for us and yet feel so very stuck because of the things I cannot control that seem to make it so much more difficult for me to navigate the world than others. It is exhausting. I know the value of a having a “home base” even when traveling and now prioritize finding accommodations that can offer a sensory refuge.
In all of this I found myself bemoaning, “why is travel so hard for me?” And then I started to try to reframe it into “how can I make travel easier for myself and others?” I began to meditate more on various Scripture passages such as Galatians 6:2 where Saint Paul asks us to “bear one another’s burdens” and when our Lord tells us “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). In meditating and reflecting I began to think that maybe God does have a plan after all… which of course He does. But I was just beginning to see it in this way. I was beginning to see that the struggles I was facing were not just struggles but also helping me to see the world in a unique way. These things which I saw as hard were giving me empathy. I began to realize that just perhaps God gave me such a desire to travel so that I could help others who feel the same way as me travel themselves. I don’t ever want anyone to feel like travel is impossible just because it feels challenging.
I realized that the world was not built to be “easy” for travelers like me and that I would have to be someone to help build that bridge. And so I became a travel agent and started Blue Luz Travel Agency. I could see that the standard travel advice just was not applicable to the needs of the disabled or neurodiverse (those whose brains process information differently such as those with autism or ADHD). For example, being told to travel with just a carry on has always been laughable to me as my medical necessities can easily fill that and more. And so I decided to embrace the things that made me different. With my physical disabilities I know what questions I need to ask and I have realized it is necessary to ask them. With my autism I can see things from a different perspective and really do the research to answer the questions that travelers may have… and even answer questions they didn’t know they had, according to my sister. And all of this is summed up in my mission statement for Blue Luz: “we see a world in which all people are able to travel… according to their needs.”
In conclusion, being a travel agent and running a travel agency is more than just buying tickets and booking a vacation. Being a travel agent, a travel advisor, is being here to help people travel without fear. It is being on your side and in your corner as you plan and as you travel. And it is always entrusting your travel to the Lord, praying that He will help you travel safely and joyfully.
When you are ready to plan a vacation or a trip of any size, I hope you will remember me and Blue Luz Travel Agency. I am always here for you and would love to help you travel the way you want to do so. If you are ready today, please book an initial travel consultation call to discuss your ideas. I cannot wait to help you experience the world that God has given us.
